Indeed, in my thread from yesterday I said more or less literally this, so perhaps you are referring to that.
Between your use of the word "literally" and your description of certain messages as "signing at the bottom", I think the subtext is clear that you view these types of posts as negative, and you would prefer that they were never brought into being in the first place. Correct me if I'm wrong about the subtext.
If I'm understanding the subtext correctly: 👇
It is of course relevant to distinguish between posts that do and do not contain technical insight. However, it seems to me like you are taking an extra leap that I'm not sure that I buy, which is the conflation of technical insight and "substance". Obviously, I'm not disputing the utmost importance of technical insight in these endeavors - I'm simply suggesting that the definition of "substance" be broader than just "technical insight".
However, that being said, it seems clear to me that my post in particular is rather low in substance no matter how we define it. However, by (what I think is) your definition it has zero "substance", and by the definition I'm suggesting it would have non-zero "substance", and therefore would be desired by the community in some form, although perhaps that form should be altered (e.g., not a new thread).
Specifically, I would say that my post contains two small pieces of "substance":
- My vote in favor of the proposed change.
- The fact that I care enough to make the post.
I would argue that #1 is actually a form of technical insight and therefore should count as non-zero substance by your definition as well.
It might be reasonable to counter with: "Sure, it's non-zero, but it's not worth its own post let alone its own thread - that that's what liking other people's posts is for". If not for Substance #2 I would already agree with you that I should have just added myself as one more like to Jordan's original thread and left it at that.
I'm open to be disillusioned about #2, but my current perspective is that "technical insight" and "proof that I care" are like "a car" and "gasoline". If everyone more or less agrees about the technicalities but no one posts about it in two years, are you very sure that my post trying to ignite some new flame is entirely worthless? Maybe the second kind of substance that I'm bringing to the table is actually exactly the kind of substance that that particular equation is needing.
It might be reasonable to counter with: "If no one has posted about it in two years maybe it's because most people actually don't care that much about it, and if it's only you that cares then that isn't enough to matter, so don't post." To me it seems clear that the way these things work is that there is often latent consensus that is periodically triggered by one person eventually speaking out about a particular topic. From that perspective, it seemed like a fine idea to me to allow the flame that spontaneously lit inside of me to travel to others via the forum, by way of doing a few minutes of refresher-research on the topic and then posting about it. If the flame only finds wet wood then it will go out swiftly (
) and won't have caused enough bother to outweigh the times when that flame blazes a later-beloved trail.
If I become convinced that the community as a whole only wants to read posts with novel technical insight then I will happily downgrade all other content to well-placed likes (within the technical site categories of course).
Lastly, regarding the topic of "likes", I'd like to add that I would love to have a formalized system of consensus tracking like I briefly mentioned here, which I think would make it so much easier to cut through the noise and get clear a sense of the landscape of ideas.